I've had the mascara issue for as long as I can remember. It wasn't helpful that this morning my eyelashes clumped together in a sticky black glob and looked nothing like the mega 60 volume that Maybelline had promised, but I haven't written them a strongly worded email yet, so it's really my own fault...I haven't switched to Great Lash either like I had planned (check the January blogs if you are completely lost on this topic) so, like I said, I deserve the clumping and globbing that I get.
This weekend, however, I had an especially important Hollywood gala to attend...okay, it was actually a school auction, but the theme was Hollywood, so I decided to go all out and glam it up with big hair, smoky eyes and amazing lashes...and not wanting to leave it to chance (or to Maybelline) I went out and bought $6.00 lashes at CVS. $6.00!! and that included the glue and the applicator!
I have to say that I was a little apprehensive when I looked more closely at the packaging and noticed that my lashes were 100% authentic human hair...but then I read that it was sanitized human hair and I felt much better about the whole thing. I pinched the lashes with the plastic applicator, squeezed on the glue, matched them up to my lashline...and voila! Amazing 100% human hair lashes...no Maybelline needed. They really worked well for me all night...I mean, they kept rubbing wierdly against my nose, but I figured if that was the worst of it, it was worth the constant wondering about exactly whose sanitized hair I was wearing - and where do they get human hair for eyelashes? The floor of the salon? or is it donated when someone dies - like organs? Aside from these incredibly morbid questions, my eyelashes held up well...unlike my friend Beth who also attempted the CVS lashes, but ended up with one set flapping into her eyes before we even made it into the party...I tried to help her reattach them, but instead, she pulled them off and applied the mascara that was hidden in her purse "just in case."
I actually liked the lashes so much that I reapplied them the next morning for Kaitlyn's softball game. Wearing them to softball though, really didn't hold as much luster as the big Hollywood gala, so they were off and shoved in the back of the bathroom closet by 2pm...but I have to admit that by this morning I was missing having glam lashes again...so I'll probably finally write that strongly worded email to Maybelline and pick up a tube of regular old Great Lash to see if it still works as well as it did in Jr. High...or maybe I'll just sneak the fake lashes out of the closet and wear them around just for fun - because hey, someone took the time to donate their hair for my beauty needs - and I would hate for someone's thoughtful hair donation to go to waste...
Monday, March 30, 2009
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Florida Chick Goes Bargain Hunting
When I think flea market, I generally think of some HGTV show where they take a rickety old chair and turn it into a great shabby chic piece for under $20.00...or that show on PBS where the British brothers tell the little old lady that the ceramic vase she picked up last weekend is actually worth $18,000. So when I headed to the Mardi Gras Casino flea market this afternoon with Kaitlyn and her friend Lena, I was slightly surprised not to find more antiques...instead I found kiosks with giant underwear, used fur coats, and various vases that probably came free with a delivery of valentine carnations in 1984.
Once we discovered that the big plastic sunglasses from the 70's were the closest thing to an antique that we were going to find, we settled on a different mission: to find the tackiest item in the flea market and buy it. It was a difficult task finding the tackiest item, there was just too much to choose from. In our top 5 were a giant tie-dye painted ashtray, a collectors plate with a painting of Daddy Warbucks, a pink ceramic bird thing, a velvet tiger painting, and a portable toilet seat. But number one, (even tackier than the toilet seat) was a paper mache hippopotamus (painted like a giraffe) with a purple and gold kente cloth sack for a body and red paper mache feet...asking price? $5.00. I wish I would have had my camera because the description doesn't do it justice...it was just ugly...and confusing - a hippo in a sack? with giraffe spots? It couldn't even sit up because it didn't have a body...maybe you could hang it on the wall...
Anyway, we decided to buy the hippo, and being the expert HGTV watcher, I knew the rules...bid low, hold your poker face, and pretend that you're going to walk away if they don't meet your price. Apparently this works better in theory, because the minute I offered $1.00, the man glared at me with an evil eye (this does not happen on HGTV) and yelled to his wife in the back of the stall in a language I didn't understand..."$10.00" she yelled back. Now, I don't think I know all of the negotiating rules because I offered $2.00 next and pointed out that $10.00 was ridiculous because the original price was only $5.00. I think that maybe it wouldn't have been so bad if I had stopped there...but in my HGTV inspired overconfidence I also added, "cmon, no one else is going to buy this." I think that might have been the icing on the cake because from the back of the stall came the wife's voice yelling, "put it back, you go away and put it back." Kaitlyn, Lena and I put the paper mache hippo down and booked it out of there.
In the end, I came home with nothing from the flea market but shaken negotiating confidence and a little bit of resentment towards HGTV. Seriously, if you're going to offer flea market advice, please double check the South Florida rules because honestly, like everything else, they are a little different down here. I actually had fun hanging with the girls today and I even got an ab workout laughing about the portable toilet and the giant underwear. I can only hope that at the end of the day the ugly hippo didn't actually belong to some minor royalty and that it's actually worth $18,000...or, maybe I can hope that it is worth $18,000 and someone bought it for $5.00...and is now hanging it on the wall of their double-wide.
Once we discovered that the big plastic sunglasses from the 70's were the closest thing to an antique that we were going to find, we settled on a different mission: to find the tackiest item in the flea market and buy it. It was a difficult task finding the tackiest item, there was just too much to choose from. In our top 5 were a giant tie-dye painted ashtray, a collectors plate with a painting of Daddy Warbucks, a pink ceramic bird thing, a velvet tiger painting, and a portable toilet seat. But number one, (even tackier than the toilet seat) was a paper mache hippopotamus (painted like a giraffe) with a purple and gold kente cloth sack for a body and red paper mache feet...asking price? $5.00. I wish I would have had my camera because the description doesn't do it justice...it was just ugly...and confusing - a hippo in a sack? with giraffe spots? It couldn't even sit up because it didn't have a body...maybe you could hang it on the wall...
Anyway, we decided to buy the hippo, and being the expert HGTV watcher, I knew the rules...bid low, hold your poker face, and pretend that you're going to walk away if they don't meet your price. Apparently this works better in theory, because the minute I offered $1.00, the man glared at me with an evil eye (this does not happen on HGTV) and yelled to his wife in the back of the stall in a language I didn't understand..."$10.00" she yelled back. Now, I don't think I know all of the negotiating rules because I offered $2.00 next and pointed out that $10.00 was ridiculous because the original price was only $5.00. I think that maybe it wouldn't have been so bad if I had stopped there...but in my HGTV inspired overconfidence I also added, "cmon, no one else is going to buy this." I think that might have been the icing on the cake because from the back of the stall came the wife's voice yelling, "put it back, you go away and put it back." Kaitlyn, Lena and I put the paper mache hippo down and booked it out of there.
In the end, I came home with nothing from the flea market but shaken negotiating confidence and a little bit of resentment towards HGTV. Seriously, if you're going to offer flea market advice, please double check the South Florida rules because honestly, like everything else, they are a little different down here. I actually had fun hanging with the girls today and I even got an ab workout laughing about the portable toilet and the giant underwear. I can only hope that at the end of the day the ugly hippo didn't actually belong to some minor royalty and that it's actually worth $18,000...or, maybe I can hope that it is worth $18,000 and someone bought it for $5.00...and is now hanging it on the wall of their double-wide.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Florida Chick Watered Down
I'm not a huge fan of water...don't really like the ocean, really don't like lakes or rivers, basically I'm completely freaked out about swimming in the place where fish use the bathroom, and seaweed has the possibility of getting anywhere near my legs. Not only do I dislike being in the water - I'm not really a fan of drinking water either...I prefer drinking Gatorade...or Corona. But this week, on the advice of my friend Laura, who scarred me slightly by telling me the exact salt and sugar content of Gatorade...coupled with the fact that my jeans are just hinting at snugness - I decided to give up all drinks except water...no Gatorade, no Corona, no juiceboxes (which I tend to resort to if there is no Gatorade in the house) just pure, refreshing water.
I did pretty well with this challenge, we bought a big pack of water bottles (I'd hate to actually have to resort to drinking tap water) and I brought one everywhere with me. There was one grape G2 in the fridge staring at me until about Thursday...but I think Chris finally drank it, which relieved me of major temptation. I think the whole thing worked...I went to the doctor's on Wednesday morning and weighed in about 3 lbs. less than usual (of course, I did have to fast from midnight the night before, but let's just pretend it's the water). I really did feel good this week - more energy and kudos from Laura who had been seriously concerned about my unhealthy daily levels of Gatorade-salt-and-sugar. But of course, all good things must come to an end...including healthy habits...so when Chris came home from the grocery story yesterday with new bottles of Gatorade, I did my best to exhibit some semblance of self-control...meaning I waited about an hour until it was nice and cold before drinking it down, but hey - five days without is pretty good...now if only I had a Corona...
I did pretty well with this challenge, we bought a big pack of water bottles (I'd hate to actually have to resort to drinking tap water) and I brought one everywhere with me. There was one grape G2 in the fridge staring at me until about Thursday...but I think Chris finally drank it, which relieved me of major temptation. I think the whole thing worked...I went to the doctor's on Wednesday morning and weighed in about 3 lbs. less than usual (of course, I did have to fast from midnight the night before, but let's just pretend it's the water). I really did feel good this week - more energy and kudos from Laura who had been seriously concerned about my unhealthy daily levels of Gatorade-salt-and-sugar. But of course, all good things must come to an end...including healthy habits...so when Chris came home from the grocery story yesterday with new bottles of Gatorade, I did my best to exhibit some semblance of self-control...meaning I waited about an hour until it was nice and cold before drinking it down, but hey - five days without is pretty good...now if only I had a Corona...
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Florida Chick Tries Generosity
My friend Emilie has this great list of 101 things that she wants to do in the next 1001 days. I've tried to make my own list, but so far I'm stuck at number 54. I've stolen a few of her ideas, (since I seem to be slightly creatively challenged on my own) and this week I decided to put one of them into practice: pay for the person behind me in the drive-thru. Now, I'm not naturally generous. It's one of the many flaws of which I'm well aware - so when I decided to buy the person's coffee in the Starbuck's line behind me this past Wednesday, it was a huge stretch for me...especially since I was using a coveted gift card.
I pulled into the Starbucks line right around the corner from my school. For some reason I felt kind of nervous about the whole "sharing with others" thing - I think I was worried that the person behind me would order breakfast for their whole office and I'd end up paying $50.00 for coffee for complete strangers. I kept looking in my rear view mirror to see who would pull up behind me, and finally...of course, a completely tricked out Land Rover with chrome detailing driven by a fully made up woman on her i-phone. I'm not sure what happened inside me, but I just felt like I wasn't unselfish enough to buy coffee for someone in a $70,000 car. So I decided to wait...
So on Friday, I went back to Starbucks (I had a gift card so I figured I'd splurge on a second trip) completely determined to be unselfish this time and buy a coffee for the car behind me no matter what...and of course, no Land Rover this time...just a silver Mercedes convertible - the nice one (ok, so they're all nice) but honestly, the really nice one with the letters like CXLR or something like that - and of course, once again I backed out.
Now, if I'm actually going to pull off this generosity thing, I need to realize that at this particular Starbucks, 9 times out of 10, the car behind me in line will probably cost more than my annual salary. I should probably also realize, that wealthy people need free coffee too - in this economy you never know when the money saved on a non-fat caramel latte, might be just the $4.50 needed to make this month's car payment...or maybe not, which is why instead, I handed $2.00 to the homeless vet on the corner as I pulled out of the parking lot - after all, he might spend it on booze and cigarettes, but at least I know he'll appreciate it...and in the end, I didn't even have to share my gift card...not that I'm selfish or anything.
I pulled into the Starbucks line right around the corner from my school. For some reason I felt kind of nervous about the whole "sharing with others" thing - I think I was worried that the person behind me would order breakfast for their whole office and I'd end up paying $50.00 for coffee for complete strangers. I kept looking in my rear view mirror to see who would pull up behind me, and finally...of course, a completely tricked out Land Rover with chrome detailing driven by a fully made up woman on her i-phone. I'm not sure what happened inside me, but I just felt like I wasn't unselfish enough to buy coffee for someone in a $70,000 car. So I decided to wait...
So on Friday, I went back to Starbucks (I had a gift card so I figured I'd splurge on a second trip) completely determined to be unselfish this time and buy a coffee for the car behind me no matter what...and of course, no Land Rover this time...just a silver Mercedes convertible - the nice one (ok, so they're all nice) but honestly, the really nice one with the letters like CXLR or something like that - and of course, once again I backed out.
Now, if I'm actually going to pull off this generosity thing, I need to realize that at this particular Starbucks, 9 times out of 10, the car behind me in line will probably cost more than my annual salary. I should probably also realize, that wealthy people need free coffee too - in this economy you never know when the money saved on a non-fat caramel latte, might be just the $4.50 needed to make this month's car payment...or maybe not, which is why instead, I handed $2.00 to the homeless vet on the corner as I pulled out of the parking lot - after all, he might spend it on booze and cigarettes, but at least I know he'll appreciate it...and in the end, I didn't even have to share my gift card...not that I'm selfish or anything.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Florida Chick Makes Bread
I've realized that I'm more fallible than I'd originally thought - and writing about something new every single day just might not work out so well...but I'm still aiming for at least once a week - that seems reasonable enough - 52 new things in a year, I can do that - of course, I'm already at 32 so what's another 20? It's slightly draining to constantly be working on new things to write about, so thankfully this week my friend Travis stepped in...he's one of my biggest blog fans, and I suppose he was frightened that I might run out of ideas...so in a moment of brilliance, he sent me my next challenge, make Amish friendship bread.
I don't know how many of you are familiar with Amish friendship bread, but a friend (hence the name) starts a batch of batter, splits it up, and gives you a starter of your own - it's like a chain letter in a ziploc bag. My starter kit arrived in the mail from Michigan this past Tuesday - a ziploc bag of mushy goo and a list of directions. The directions are as follows:
Day one (the day listed on the bag) - mush the bag
Day two - mush the bag
Day three - mush the bag
Day four - mush the bag
Day five - mush the bag
Day six - add 1c. flour, 1c. sugar, 1c. milk - mush the bag
Day seven - mush the bag
Day eight - mush the bag
Day nine - mush the bag
Day ten - Pour the entire contents of the bag into a non-metal bowl. Add 1 1/2c. flour, 1 1/2c. sugar, and 1 1/2c. milk - Measure out four 1c. portions into gallon size Ziploc bags. Keep one for yourself and pass alont the other three to friends.
So in theory, this is a pretty simple task...it generally consists of mushing a bag of gooey bread batter for a week and sharing it with others. In reality, however, it didn't go quite so smoothly. First off, I recieved the bag of batter on Tuesday - which turned out to be day 7 of the cycle. I'm not usually one to stick all that close to recipes, so I figured even though I missed the "add-in" date, I'd go ahead and move forward...so I added the sugar and the flour - however, I didn't have any milk (and thanks to the stinkin grocery game - I only go shopping on Sundays now) so I added a cup of water instead.
I went ahead and mushed for the next three days...but when I got to day ten, I realized that not only did I still not have any milk, I was also out of sugar (I don't bake...what on earth do I need sugar for?). Fortunately it was Saturday so I ran to the grocery store a day early...but by the time I got home, I had completely forgotten the sugar (I never use that aisle) but I had a whole weeks worth of groceries including a a buy one get one free bonus pack of deodorant - and a gallon of milk.
Anyway, by the time Saturday night came around, my bag of mushy bread batter was beginning to smell rancid and it was leaking onto my counter through the not very strong zipper top of the ziploc. I still didn't have any sugar and I didn't have any ziploc bags to pour it into (we don't use plastic bags in our house - it's bad for the environment) and unfortunately, my Amish friendship bread, after a long week and 3000 miles of travel, ended up in the garbage...I just hope this is more a reflection of my ability (or inability) to bake, than my ability at friendship - So with apologies to Travis, I'm ready to try something new - let me know what you think I should try, I'm up for another challenge...as long as it doesn't involve baking.
I don't know how many of you are familiar with Amish friendship bread, but a friend (hence the name) starts a batch of batter, splits it up, and gives you a starter of your own - it's like a chain letter in a ziploc bag. My starter kit arrived in the mail from Michigan this past Tuesday - a ziploc bag of mushy goo and a list of directions. The directions are as follows:
Day one (the day listed on the bag) - mush the bag
Day two - mush the bag
Day three - mush the bag
Day four - mush the bag
Day five - mush the bag
Day six - add 1c. flour, 1c. sugar, 1c. milk - mush the bag
Day seven - mush the bag
Day eight - mush the bag
Day nine - mush the bag
Day ten - Pour the entire contents of the bag into a non-metal bowl. Add 1 1/2c. flour, 1 1/2c. sugar, and 1 1/2c. milk - Measure out four 1c. portions into gallon size Ziploc bags. Keep one for yourself and pass alont the other three to friends.
So in theory, this is a pretty simple task...it generally consists of mushing a bag of gooey bread batter for a week and sharing it with others. In reality, however, it didn't go quite so smoothly. First off, I recieved the bag of batter on Tuesday - which turned out to be day 7 of the cycle. I'm not usually one to stick all that close to recipes, so I figured even though I missed the "add-in" date, I'd go ahead and move forward...so I added the sugar and the flour - however, I didn't have any milk (and thanks to the stinkin grocery game - I only go shopping on Sundays now) so I added a cup of water instead.
I went ahead and mushed for the next three days...but when I got to day ten, I realized that not only did I still not have any milk, I was also out of sugar (I don't bake...what on earth do I need sugar for?). Fortunately it was Saturday so I ran to the grocery store a day early...but by the time I got home, I had completely forgotten the sugar (I never use that aisle) but I had a whole weeks worth of groceries including a a buy one get one free bonus pack of deodorant - and a gallon of milk.
Anyway, by the time Saturday night came around, my bag of mushy bread batter was beginning to smell rancid and it was leaking onto my counter through the not very strong zipper top of the ziploc. I still didn't have any sugar and I didn't have any ziploc bags to pour it into (we don't use plastic bags in our house - it's bad for the environment) and unfortunately, my Amish friendship bread, after a long week and 3000 miles of travel, ended up in the garbage...I just hope this is more a reflection of my ability (or inability) to bake, than my ability at friendship - So with apologies to Travis, I'm ready to try something new - let me know what you think I should try, I'm up for another challenge...as long as it doesn't involve baking.
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